Such an unexpected treat and left me wiping away a few tears. Richly written love story that is perfect for summertime reading and lazy days. All the feels!!

Official Blurb - 1953, Tehran. Roya loves nothing better than to while away the hours in the local stationery shop run by Mr. Fakhri. The store, stocked with fountain pens, shiny ink bottles, and thick pads of writing paper, also carries translations of literature from all over the world. And when Mr. Fakhri introduces her to his other favorite customer handsome Bahman , with his burning passion for justice and a shared love for Rumi's poetry Roya loses her heart at once. But around them, life in Tehran is changing. On the eve of their marriage, Roya heads to the town square to meet with Bahman. Suddenly, shockingly, violence erupts: a coup d'etat that forever changes their country's future. Bahman never arrives. Roya must piece her life back together. Her parents, wanting her to be safe, enroll her in college in California, where she meets and marries another man. But, nearly sixty years later, an accident of fate finally brings her the answer she has always wanted to know Why did you leave? Where did you go? How is it that you were able to forget me? Marjan Kamali's beautiful novel, set in a country poised for democracy but destroyed by political upheaval, explores issues that have never been more timely, of immigration and cultural assimilation and of the strange quirks of fate.
BUY THE STATIONERY SHOP OF TEHRAN BY MARJAN KAMALI

Lots of contenders for this years favourite reads list. Its like staring at your TBR list and deciding which one to read first. You pick one up then put it down. I have read some of the old comfort classics, new releases, been enthralled this year with the Young Adult stories and read some mind blowing biographies. However with the crazy ride ( AGAIN ) of 2021 nearly at an end, check out these beauties below to find out why they made the cut.

Well well well. Amor Towles has nailed it again with his new release The Lincoln Highway. It's ticking the boxes and all the feels for me as its about a road trip, woo hoo,  and set in the 1950's, an era that like a lot of you, I am obsessed with. Such in depth characters that once again, just like A Gentleman in Moscow, you really feel like you are on the journey with these two brothers, dare I say friends even.  A sure fire winner and a def contender for next months Book of the month end of year favourite 2021 read. 

Official blurb - Bursting with life, charm and unforgettable characters, The Lincoln Highway is an extraordinary journey through 1950s America from a master storyteller. Emmett returns home to pick-up his little brother Billy, tie-up his late father’s estate and get out of town for good. Since leaving the Kansas youth facility where he’s served time, Emmett has wanted one thing, to give them both a fresh start: and that means heading out to the sparkling west. Young, precocious Billy has plans of his own, to get to San Francisco, where he believes their long-estranged mother is waiting for them. However, as soon as they've loaded Emmett’s bright blue Studebaker with their few belongings, trouble arrives and brings its sidekick in the form of Duchess and Woolly, two runaways from the very facility Emmett just left behind him. Insatiable Duchess and his devoted, but slow companion Woolly soon wreck Billy's plan to get onto the open road, one well-intentioned blunder at a time. Each young man sees this journey as his chance to pursue his dreams, settle scores and find riches. And a simple journey quickly becomes a dazzling odyssey filled with obstacles, villains and ruses fit only for heroes to overcome.  Amor Towles says: ‘As a novelist, I like to mix it up. So, while Rules of Civility describes a year in the life of a 25-year-old woman who’s about to climb the socio-economic ladder of New York, A Gentleman in Moscow spans three decades with a Russian aristocrat who’s lost everything. My new novel, The Lincoln Highway, is about three eighteen-year-old boys and an eight-year-old boy on a journey from Nebraska to New York City in 1954—the whole story lasting just ten days. While I think The Lincoln Highway will offer readers many of the same satisfactions of my first two novels, I hope it will provide them not simply a new set of characters, settings, and themes, but a very different reading experience.’ Venetia Butterfield, Managing Director of Cornerstone, says: ‘The Lincoln Highway is a brilliant, fascinating, charming and hypnotic journey of a book. It’s playfully Homeric with glorious flashes of Steinbeck but yet it is an utterly fresh tale of kinship and adventure. As with A Gentleman In Moscow the characters become fond friends and exist long after you finish the last page.’
BUY THE LINCOLN HIGHWAY BY AMORE TOWLES